Page 71 of The Viscount's Diamond Bride
He nodded, smiling earnestly. “I do.”
“You weren’t just exercising your marital duties?”
“No, Ursula. It was not that. It was never that. Before… Before you left my house, I had planned to speak to you about our relationship. I planned to be honest.”
She shifted, sitting a little more upright. “Well, you can tell me now what you wanted to say.”
He breathed out slowly, nodding. “Thank you. Ursula, I believe I am falling in love with you. Our relationship and matrimony began strangely, and I should like to start over again.”
“Start over again? What do you mean?”
He smiled, shifting close enough almost to touch the tip of his nose with hers.
“I want to court you, Ursula. I want us to promenade together, to dance at balls, to laugh and talk and kiss together. I want us to learn about each other. We’ll read books together, we’ll talk about our favourite poems. Let us begin anew.”
She held his gaze, breaking out in a wry smile. “Will you let me read the poems you write yourself?”
Graham gave a huff of laughter. “Well, as my wife, you’ll be entirely entitled to do so. I must warn you, though, that they aren’t as good as you might hope.”
“I care naught. My wish is to read them.”
He reached up, tentatively touching her cheek and Ursula’s breath caught in her throat.
“I do love you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve made such a colossal fool of myself. I’m sorry that everything has worked out strangely. I never meant for any of this to happen. I was too afraid that I would turn into my father.”
“You could never be like him.” Ursula assured him. “You are not your father, and I am a different sort of woman to your mother. I won’t allow you to become like him, if you would onlytrustme.”
He shifted closer, dropping onto his knees, and Ursula wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He rested his head against her collar, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the warm weight of him.
She recalled how it had felt, the two of them tangled in bed together, bare skin on skin, heat fluttering in her stomach, and only empty sheets between them.
I want that again,Ursula thought, swallowing.I want him.
I believe I am in love with him, too.
“I like the idea of beginning again,” she said at last, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “As if we were courting after all.”
He pulled back, peering up into her face. “Do you mean that you agree? You’ll come home with me?”
She nodded, pushing a stray lock of hair back from his forehead. He leaned into her touch, and Ursula felt her heart quicken.
It would take a great deal of time, she concluded, to repair the breach that had grown between them. Georgiana’s betrayal, and its consequences, would not easily be forgotten. Perhaps it would never be forgotten.
But if I can at least learn to put my faith in those who are worthy,Ursula thought,then why should things not be different? Why should my life not be exactly what I make it?
On impulse, she leaned forward, fitting her lips to Graham’s. He kissed her back, his fingertips sliding up and down her ribcage, sending flutters down her spine.
The tip of his tongue just touched her lower lip, and then he pulled back, resting his forehead against hers.
“Come along, then, wife,” he breathed, giving a slow, tentative smile. “Shall we go home?”
She closed her eyes and smiled back. “Oh, yes, lets. I’ve dreamt of going home since the moment that I left, I do believe. More precisely, I have dreamt of going home withyou.”
“Ah. That makes two of us then, my love.”
Epilogue
“The beginning is always today.” –Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
